


Gentle Touches

by crimsonseekers



Series: Prowl Week 2020 [4]
Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hypersensitivity, Touch-Starved, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23794885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonseekers/pseuds/crimsonseekers
Summary: Prowl wasn’t exactly what anyone in their right mind would call a ‘touchy person.’Prowl didn’t like to touch others, and he didn’t like others touching him. It was simple.
Relationships: Jazz/Prowl
Series: Prowl Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699756
Comments: 22
Kudos: 118
Collections: Prowl Week





	Gentle Touches

**Author's Note:**

> It's Prowl Week Day 4: Sesnory, and it's time to be sad

Prowl wasn’t exactly what anyone in their right mind would call a ‘touchy person.’

Prowl didn’t like to touch others, and he didn’t like others touching him. It was simple.

He quietly seethed when given a ‘friendly’ clap on the shoulder for which he never asked, an elbow nudging his side as if there were a shared amusement between him and the propagator of the contact he didn’t want - Prowl did  _ not _ enjoy being touched.

He found it uncomfortable at best, torturously painful at worst.

Master Yoketron respected his boundaries well enough - outside of sparring and lessons, not a single servo was laid upon Prowl’s plating before he had been asked.

Prowl… appreciated the consideration. It was a respect he had never been shown before.

After Master Yoketron’s death, Prowl left Cybertron. He couldn’t stay in the dojo, not where he might be subject to the questions of returning cyber ninja to the fate of their master. Yet deeper in his spark, Prowl had never considered himself a sentimental person, but remaining in the ruined dojo with naught a sign of another life except for the two grayed frames that laid in the protoform chamber…

So Prowl left.

He found a small cave within an asteroid far from Cybertron and secluded himself. His systems ticked down slowly into a pseudo-stasis as he meditated, desperately trying to commune with the Allspark, trying to commune with Master Yoketron’s spark in the Well to ask him questions, to seek his advice.

A million stellar cycles, a processor ache, and one  _ nosy little repair bot who tried to touch him _ later, Prowl was far from the path he had ever envisioned for himself.

The space bridge repair crew he had landed himself with was…  _ odd. _ A prime, an old war medic, and two mismatched and loud Autobot Academy dropouts. And himself, a disgraced cyber ninja who couldn’t fulfill what little Master Yoketron asked of him.

Optimus wasn’t the worst ‘bot to be stuck on a ship with, yet he was far too idealistic and ‘impromptu inspirational speech that is the same as the last twenty’ for Prowl to find him companionable in any capacity. The prime also seemed unduly fond of clapping everyone on the shoulder, an action that made Prowl’s plating  _ bristle _ every time it happened.

Bumblebee and Bulkhead were loud, chaotic, and by the Allspark did Prowl wish to be  _ anywhere _ but trapped on a ship with them. Bumblebee had developed the unfortunate habit of trying to  _ jump _ and  _ tackle _ Prowl whenever he could - he seemed to take trying to surprise the cyber ninja as some sort of challenge. He was enthusiastic, and Prowl’s plating felt like it was  _ burning _ each time he was tackled in a corridor. Bulkhead was ungraceful and had fallen on top of Prowl a one too many times for Prowl to have a positive impression.

Ratchet was the only one on the ship older than Prowl himself, and was, coincidentally, the only one Prowl took no qualms with. The medic kept to his space, and (his servos) to himself.

Crashing on Earth with the Allspark and Megatron was even further outside of any predictions Prowl could have ever made for himself, even further off course than landing with a repair crew.

Meeting Jazz was certainly never in the cards he ever held for himself either.

An Elite Guard? Perhaps - if Prowl had ever returned to Cybertron. The Elite Guard had expanded enough over the course of the war, and there was enough paranoia about Decepticons that Prowl could have seen meeting at least one at some point in his functioning.

Another cyber ninja? Prowl had left Cybertron to avoid the possibility, and when they had crashed on Earth, he was fully at peace with the likeliness of never seeing one again.

Jazz tore through what peace he thought he had made with himself.

It was nice, Prowl supposed, to have another around who appreciated the finer points of Circuit-Su and Metallikato - unlike Bumblebee, who had taken to calling it “fancy karate” ever since he had learned of the earthen martial art.

Unfortunately, Jazz was a tactile mech. Prowl saw the way he leaned on Bumblebee, fist-bumped Bulkhead, clapped Optimus on the back, and would guide Ratchet to what he needed with a simple touch.

Prowl knew he would be next.

Unlike any of the team he had landed on Earth with, Jazz knew how to be sneaky. And unlike Master Yoketron, he seemed to have no respect for his personal space.

Prowl spent much of the first week after the Elite Guard arrived playing some perverted version of tag with Jazz. The other cyber ninja had taken almost no time to notice the way Prowl would duck or quickly move away to avoid his friendly pats, and seemed to take it as a personal challenge.

Jazz’s methods of pinning him down became more and more difficult to avoid as time progressed, making use of more and more of his cyber ninja training in his attempt to catch Prowl off guard.

Prowl, for his part, spent the week volunteering for patrol with Bulkhead in an attempt to distance himself from Jazz.

However, as Jazz had noticed, Prowl had never completed his cyber ninja training and was thus at a disadvantage he couldn’t stave off forever.

Jazz was too sneaky. With almost everyone else Prowl had ever encountered in his life unable to do as much as silence their footsteps, Prowl was used to at least having time to mentally prepare himself before an unwelcome touch landed upon his plating.

Jazz caught Prowl off guard on day 10 of his little tag game, and Prowl barely managed to muffle his yelp to a pained whimper as his plating  _ burned _ where Jazz had caught him around his wrist.

Jazz let go of him almost as fast as the sound had left his vocalizer, and Prowl whipped around to pin him down with an affronted glare as the other held up his servos non-threateningly.

“Chill, mech,” he said. “Didn’t mean to cause you any pain; didn’t know you were hurt.”

Prowl’s vents huffed before he could stop them. “Yes, well, you’ve won your little game. Now stop following me everywhere.” He turned to stride towards his room, bristling when he heard Jazz fall into step behind him.

“If your arm’s damaged, shouldn’t you go see Ratchet about that?” Jazz inquired.

“I’m not damaged, Jazz,” Prowl said tersely as they entered his domain. “There is no reason to concern yourself, you may leave.”

“Mech, if you’re not damaged, then why did it hurt you?”

“You did not hurt me, either,” Prowl said, ignoring the throb that continued to pulse in his arm. “I simply do not enjoy being touched, and you surprised me.”

“Mech, that wasn’t a sound of  _ surprise, _ that was a sound of  _ pain. _ There’s a difference between not liking it and being hurt by it.”

“Either way, your concern is not needed. There is nothing you can do about it, and as such I’m asking you to leave me be.”

“It’s your neural net, isn’t it,” Jazz said suddenly, having realized the problem. “Prowl, if it’s hurting you so much, can’t you just turn down the sensitivity on your receptors?”

_ “This is as low as my receptors go,” _ Prowl hissed, tiring quickly of increasingly probing questions. “I repeat myself, there is nothing you can do about it, so  _ stop bothering me.” _

There was a moment of silence, and for the briefest of instances, Prowl thought Jazz had left.

“Can I try something?”

Prowl snapped his head around to look at Jazz, who had taken a few silent steps forward and within arms reach. “What is it about ‘there is nothing you can do about it’ that is difficult for you to understand?”

“I know, I know,” Jazz said placatingly, an amused smile dancing over his lips. “I just got an idea I don’t think you’ve tried before, and it might help.”

“Oh, really?” Prowl asked skeptically, canting his helm to the side.

“Yeah really.” Jazz smiled, and sat down next to Prowl under the tree, reaching out until his servos hovered just inches away from his tense plating. He glanced up at Prowl. “If you don’t like it, tell me and I’ll drop it. Won’t mention it again, won’t try it again. Fair?”

Prowl considered it for a moment. “Fine.”

Jazz gave him a blinding smile before returning his attention to his work. A tense second passed, and his servos pressed to the plating on Prowl’s arm.

He cringed, just waiting for the overwhelming sensory feedback to loop itself in his processor and yet - it felt…  _ pleasant. _

He looked at Jazz’s servo in surprise, and then at the mech himself. “How are you doing that?”

“Magnets,” Jazz said proudly. “Usually use them to  _ heighten _ sensory feelings, but if I reverse them to push instead of pull, then the materials in your sensory net will disenge some form your plating, and as a result, less feedback! Voila!”

Prowl let himself give a small smile in return to Jazz’s large grin as he twisted his arm to entangle his fingers with Jazz’s. He had never known touch to be  _ pleasant, _ yet as Jazz squeezed his servo around Prowl’s… yes, he could see why so many sought it out.

Prowl became somewhat friendlier with Jazz, following that particular encounter. He found no qualms with the other’s presence - his company was enjoyable, his presence unobtrusive when meditating, and perhaps one of the biggest factors that led to Prowl starting to actively enjoy the other’s company,  _ his touch didn’t hurt. _

Jazz didn’t seem to mind when, eventually, Prowl started seeking him out at times simply to hold his hand. Prowl would slink up behind him, and the other cyber ninja would just offer him a blinding smile and his hand.

Touch-starved was what Prowl supposed he was after all his years of actively avoiding the experience.

At a certain point, when they had realized that if Jazz turned the magnets in his hands up enough, it could leave Prowl’s plating borderline numb compared to its usual sensitivity for hours, he would seek the other simply to be held.

There was something that he found deeply comforting, wrapped around Jazz like some sort of koala, the pressure, and physical presence of another. Jazz would talk, and Prowl would smile into his neck, making comments whenever Jazz’s stories became wilder than the realm of possibility.

When Jazz had traced a finger over Prowl’s smile, almost affectionately, and kissed him - well, Prowl held no issue with it either. The opposite, in fact, as he tilted his head and pressed back against the mouth upon his own.

Then Megatron made his final attack on Detroit.

Then Prowl relinquished himself to the Allspark when he and Jazz couldn’t summon the fragments they needed to protect the city.

Prowl was  _ dead. _

He resisted the pull to completely merge with the Allspark - he still had so much he needed to  _ do. _

He saved Optimus and lingered, and was rewarded with the sight of Jazz carrying him -  _ his _ empty frame to the team he had worked with for so long.

While Optimus fought Megatron, Prowl tried desperately to communicate with Jazz - he couldn’t leave the other with as many questions and guilt as Master Yoketron’s death had left him.

He still had so much he wanted to tell Jazz, so much he still wanted to do with him.

He felt the Allspark pulling him away - he only had so much time

He reached out and tried to grab his hand, desperate to gain Jazz’s attention -

Prowl’s hand passed right through Jazz’s, and Prowl felt  _ nothing, _ not even the slightest tingle.

Nothing.

Prowl felt nothing.

It was fine, he tried to convince himself as the Allspark gave one final tug and he faded into the Well.

It was fine.

He didn’t like being touched anyway.


End file.
